To find solo parenting easier?

[5fishfingers]

I'm not saying i know what it's like to be a single mum - as DH is only going off for set amount of times - but he's had a lot to go to recently (bereavements, stag dos, holiday with his mum, work). I am on day 6 right now and loving life.

I have two kids - one is pre-school, one year one. And stuff goes wrong (esp cos one is SEN) - but I feel free. I just handle stuff. I am finding things so much easier, less stress, less negotiation. I can organise stuff each day and i love having evenings to myself.

He's not an awful man - but he just makes everything a bit difficult. I always have to consider him. Maybe I'm just not a team player. I find working in teams at work difficult too! I just find it so much simpler when I can respond to things by myself.

Does anyone else relate? Is it selfish to leave someone on this basis? Do people believe that some people just aren't meant to be in relationships?

What sort of things? In a healthy relationship each person considers the other.

I agree OP. Much easier but I am also not good at considering someone else and being a team player. I'm good at getting on with things and I get irritated by someone stopping me! I don't like being told no and if I want to pack the car and the dc up and go away because it's going to be a sunny weekend I really don't want someone else stopping me because they don't want to!

I have absolutely loved being a single parent. I won't be in another live in relationship again. Even things like if you can't sleep you can eat chocolate in bed and watch shit tv at 3am until you do go back to sleep! Bliss!

Solo parenting is easier and more enjoyable than parenting with a crap partner for sure. Solo household income isn’t easier - and that’s the bit that people who think they are like single parents because their partners are away forget. Also, try doing it when you are ill - or when you have to decline medical treatment because there’s no one to have the kids whilst you are in hospital / recuperate.

Yes I no exactly what you mean! Personally When DP comes back I just feel like he’s in the way and just makes it harder not easier.

Yep I’ve always found it easier. I live this way through choice. Not saying it’s easy, it’s bloody exhausting at times. But better than having a man in the way. And yes, evenings to yourself are magic. Proper relaxation.

Not for me.

My DH does school runs, at least half sickness/holiday, nearly all the cooking.

He generally makes life easier.

However since being on here I find it very easy to believe it is the case for lots of women given the epidemic of utterly useless partners.

Yes, this really resonates with me. As a SAHM I spend lots of time solo in the day with the children and I feel like I want my partner to finish work to help with the children, but when he does it just seems…harder, more complicated.

i find weekends mentally exhausting and it takes twice as long for us all to leave the house. He has a lie-in so he isn’t tired (and moaning!) which sets us back, then he needs a shower (cue a ridiculous amount of time), toilet etc etc. sometimes I feel like I have another child (albeit in his work life an incredibly capable one that is amazing at his job).

I don’t want to feel like this, but it drains me. And the children misbehave more when with him, I have to ask him to stop doing silly things with them etc before bedtime. Just feels like more work even though he’s trying to help. Agh!

He does do stuff. He does all the cooking and he takes the kids out to stuff.

But he's quite a negative person - so if i suggest this or that - anything from painting the bedroom, to a weekend away, to booking DC onto a class - there is a reason why it's a stupid idea. And he's bad in a crisis, so loses his cool in stressful or tiring situations.

He's not utterly useless or anything. I just love life so much when it's just me and the kids.

The income is not an issue as fortunate enough in my job for it to be ok. But definitely take the point baout being ill.

When I was younger I floated around making my exp/then exh happy. I cooked what I knew they liked, I was almost like one of the barbies when Ken brings misogyny back to barbie land. I watched my mother do the same.

I've been so happy single once I got used to it. I can't explain how happy it makes me to do whatever I want to do whenever I want to. To make food I want to eat, or live on toast if I want.

It's so nice to not be wrapped up in keeping someone else happy or having my happiness depend on someone else. I've become quite selfish over my wants and needs and don't think I could ever be a here have a sandwich woman again!

(Yes I know there are unicorn men out there that apparently don't stop you doing exactly what you want when you want it, but then that would be quite selfish on my part if I got to only have my needs met over his).

As a lone parent, as kids get older and if the SEN changes so that bedtime becomes later/child doesn’t sleep then evenings can get lost
If the partner moves away, meets someone else & has more kids with that person it can get tricky especially as there is less money to go round

Your DP makes your life harder. Partners are supposed to make your life easier. So it seems easier when he's not there.

Totally nicer, easier, less stressful, more efficient, cheaper, more relaxing, happier being single parent.
Both EDH's totally useless fuckers.

I think children behave differently when there's just one parent. They are getting focused 1 on 1 attention from you and are happier and calmer as a result. I don't think single parenting overall is easier (christ no) but splitting a weekend for instance into a day by yourself with the kids each will feel more harmonious.

Same here.

Not for me but my ex doesn't see them (so no time off) and pays no maintenance so that makes a difference. It was by far easier when he was around.

I agree OP. I split from ds' dad when ds was 2 but ex has been involved in ds' life since.

In the intervening years he has - completely forgotten ds' birthday, bought a card with the wrong age badge, bought a Where's Wally outfit for World Book Day but got an age 4 outfit for his 7yo son.

He's left ds alone with a new puppy who then bit ds' hand so badly, he needed stitches and a week of broad spectrum ABs to beat the infection. He's left me in paediatric ITU with 2yo ds with swine flu because 'he'd had a drink'. ie was too tight/lazy to call a cab.

He's bought a sports car without checking whether it would take a child seat (it wouldn't). And on one occasion when ds had taken a tumble and I'd asked him to go and buy some Dettol so I could put a cap of it in Ds' bath, he came back with toilet bleach.

DS is a lovely child to parent, generally healthy, happy, easy going and self sufficient. Life is so much easier, less stressful, better organised and less expensive without ex around. I thank God daily that ex was too lazy to ask for 50:50 because I'm not sure ds would have survived the experience. For an apparently intelligent high-functioning man, he was and is completely useless.

My ExH was away 6 nights a week for almost a year when my two were 1 and 3. It was bliss! I’m sure the seeds of our divorce were sown then - oh and the fact that he didn’t actually need to be away 6 nights a week he just chose to spend two of them with his mistress.

When we actually divorced when the DC were teens I don’t think I’ve ever felt such relief. And yes, my life was so easy not having to walk on egg shells around him, telepathically know what he’d just decided he really wanted, constantly change arrangements to fit around his erratic ‘work’ hours - yes mistress v2 was in place by then.

I have remarried and my life is still easy. I found someone who didn’t think I had to revolve everything around him, could remember stuff we’d discussed and agreed on, and was happy to just get on with stuff without needing to be reminded. Oh, and he doesn’t seem to need to keep a mistress either.

I have found the same, so much I am still convinced that raising my child on my own for years has been much easier and much less work than raising him with my exhusband around.

The only things that gets tricky (actually VERY VERY tricky) is not having much back up if you or your child fall ill, if you have to work long hours or if you are so exhausted after working 3 jobs a week to have much energy left to do something fun with your kid. But then, many married women are exactly in the same position.

I thank God daily that ex was too lazy to ask for 50:50 because I'm not sure ds would have survived the experience

@MintJulia

And that in a sentence is the main thing stopping me. DH is pretty lazy, but i think might go for 5050. I feel like i'd be risking my DC happiness because of my desire to be alone. i cant say he has done anything too wrong, he has never cheated, he doesn't drink, he works, he plays with the kids. he is just negative and also i think it might be me. I don't want to live with any man. I have spent my whole life navigating relationships with men and i just don't want to do it anymore. i'm so happy with my own company

there is a thread about whether divorce is selfish. that is the thing i worry about. i'm just being selfish.

just had such a lovely bedtime with my kids. now downstairs with a cup of tea and a bit of chocolate. bliss.

You may find as your children get older you end up just getting on with organising the kids and household. Simply because it’s easier. Tell you DH what your plans are and he can join in or not. I suspect at the moment you think he should be involved in what you and DCs do but he doesn’t really want to.

Dh called last night to say all this time away has made him realise that nothing is more important than me and the kids.

Feel awful I don't feel the same. He's coming home soon and I don't want him to. I just don't want to be with anyone. I'm very selfish I think.

Men let me down all my life and something has happened in my brain when I just want rid of them all! If I'd known I could have done it alone this whole time I'd have bought sperm off the Internet!

I find solo parenting infinitely easier. I found being married endlessly feeling I had to justify putting my child's needs ahead of my then husband's wants. Most men aren't really cut out for parenting, they are too selfish and don't have the stamina or the emotional intelligence. Unless you have one of the really rare ones who actually works with you as a team you're better off doing it on your own.

Why do women feel selfish for not wanting to live with a useless man?! Let go of the guilt!

I think most men are unhelpful. They also have such loud voices! Can't they talk more quietly. Lol.

I've always been a single parent (by choice) and I don't know any different. I enjoy it, and I think it's certainly simple and straightforward for me and the kids.

Having only one income (albeit a reasonably decent one) is hard. Having nobody to split unexpected sick days / childcare falling through is hard. Having nobody to role model gratitude, or to support me emotionally, is hard. (This latter has only started becoming an issue since the pandemic - I used to have much more mutually supportive friendships, but everyone collectively falling on hard times seems to have led to a lot of battening down hatches.)

I definitely see a lot of women parenting in relationships where I think 'fuck, I don't know why they put up with that', but I also often hear women liken themselves to single parents when their partner works away, will be coming home to give them a break at some certain point, and is at the other end of the phone when they feel shit. 🤷🏼‍♀️